Thomas Truax - All That Heaven Allows
With his louche delivery and hangdog countenance – think Rich Hall with a guitar - Thomas Truax is such a spellbinding live performer that is hard to imagine him reduced to a noise on a CD. Subtract the spinning wheels of the Sister Spinster or the looping sound of the Hornicator and what do we really have? The answer, based on the evidence contained within “All that Heaven Allows”, is a songwriter of wit and substance.
The opening tune makes for a surprisingly understated start, though teasingly, it’s only part one of what “Granny Says”. Sure enough, when part two comes around Truax’s guitar kicks in and things take on a darker tone. Dripping in melancholy and backed by instrumentation otherwise unknown to man, this is the point in the album you could be listening to no one else. Sandwiched in between the two parts is Truax’s idea of a hit single, “Save Me”, a song so sweet it’s unsettling. It’s also one of the few on which he has collaborated, most notably with Gemma Ray – the finest voice to come out of Basildon since Alison Moyet – who joins him on vocals. Thereafter the influences come thick and fast, and herald largely from the last century. Hints of the B52s, Talking Heads, and even shades of Bob Calvert, are all refracted through the prism of Truax’s musical instincts. By the time we arrive at the eponymous song, an elegiac love letter to a woman graciously growing older, the penny drops that this is a collection of deceptive depth and complexity. As the album closes on “The Mobile starts to Spin” my abiding thought was not so much what I had heard, but rather what I had very probably missed. This is an album that rewards repeated listening with previously undiscovered treasures.
For those that consider overt weirdness an essential component of the Truax package, this recording might be judged a little conventional, which in turn might feel a tad disappointing, but such thoughts are misplaced. On the contrary, without seeing the means of production, albeit a fascinating and diverting theatrical experience, and instead made to really listen to the music, Truax emerges as a distinctive and original songwriter - one that has carefully assembled a series of seemingly disconnected songs into a thematic and emotional whole.
